


Be Brave Saith My Heart

by Laney_builds_cathedrals



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F, Gentle Clarke, Shy lexa, soft clexa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 05:45:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9109201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laney_builds_cathedrals/pseuds/Laney_builds_cathedrals
Summary: The edge of one of her shoes had brushed very gently against the side of Lexa’s trousered leg, and nothing in her life had ever felt so real, so close.Clarke persuades a reluctant Lexa to come home with her for the holidays.





	

I

Lexa was pale-lipped and stiff with cold by the time she was dropped off at a gas station three blocks away from Anya’s apartment. The truck that had offered her a lift on the freeway had no heating, and the air in the cab had been painfully cold: damp with the smell of snow. Her chest felt suspiciously tight and there was an unhappy twinge when she breathed in deeply, a close, familiar ache. She re-tied her scarf and hoisted the duffle bag higher up on her shoulder, trying to convince herself not to go into the little store down the street and buy cigarettes. Once the thought of having a smoke was in her mind it became difficult to resist, and she was tired and disheartened. In the end, she went in and bought a pack of ten because that was all she could afford, huddling in the store doorway to light one with her old zippo. The smoke as she exhaled was particularly satisfying to watch, billowing out into the cold air in thick white curls. She could hear the store’s radio playing tinny Christmas music behind her, and smell the falafel at the Lebanese café next door, where she and Anya ate whenever they had the money.

Anya had taken her there more than two years ago, when she was nineteen and nervous of the city, nervous of a lot of things. It had been a Friday afternoon, the end of her second week at the university, and Anya had showed up at the library looking for her. She’d found her in the Classics section, reading Ovid on the floor between two bookcases with her knees pulled up to her chest. Lexa remembered with acute, almost painful affection how she had sat down so nonchalantly, long legs folded neatly beneath her, close enough to Lexa to glance over and see which poem she was reading in the dim afternoon light of the library. She had read the last line out loud in her lovely, hoarse-voiced Latin: _May all my siestas be so successful_. Then she had smiled crookedly at Lexa and said, “Sexy.” For a while they had simply sat there together, in that near-sacred silence, and Anya had asked a few quiet questions about her classes and her professors.

“Are you good?” she had asked at last, reaching out and putting a light hand on Lexa’s shoulder, “Do you need anything?”

Lexa had shaken her head, then paused and tilted her chin hesitantly, closing the _Amores_ but keeping its comforting weight in her lap, running her hand over the smooth binding. “I think I need glasses,” she had said, “Do you know how I’d go about that?”  

Anya had laughed and taken the book from her, sliding it back into its place on the shelf above them, then standing up and offering Lexa a hand to pull her to her feet, “Let’s go right now, to the optometrist first, then I’m taking you to dinner.”     

She had already known that she was Anya’s protégé, that everything she suddenly had: a dorm room, an allowance, a library full of books and the time to read them, were all because Anya had taken a moment to pay attention, had recognised something inside her that Lexa herself could only vaguely understand, and had fought tooth and nail for her. She knew all of those things intimately, had taken them very much to heart, but it had been on that Friday, sitting opposite Anya in the Lebanese café, haltingly trying to explain how she was able to read the Arabic on the menu, that she had realised that Anya might want a friend as much as a student.

When she had finished her cigarette, she smothered the butt on the pavement and flicked it into a trash can, then lit another one and moved on towards Anya’s apartment block, smoking as she walked and feeling faintly warmer. It was the last Saturday of the fall semester, and she had taken leave over the past two days to go to a funeral in her hometown, a depressing, painful thing she had convinced herself was necessary. Anya hadn’t wanted her to go, Lexa had seen it in her face and sensed it in the long hug she had given her at the bus stop on Wednesday evening, but she’d accepted it because the two of them thought similarly, had perhaps read more Ancient literature than was good for them. She understood Lexa’s painstakingly self-constructed moral code better than anyone else, her almost masochistic sense of what was right and honourable, and wouldn’t interfere with it. Clarke, on the other hand, had made it clear that she did not understand, and Lexa loved her for that just as fiercely as she loved Anya for understanding.

It was very good to be back in the city, and exhausted as she was, Lexa basked in the relief of it. Even the heaviness in her limbs and the ache in her chest were pleasant with the knowledge that she could collapse into bed in her quiet, safe little dorm room with the soft sounds of her fellow residents in the corridor and the neighbouring rooms. She loved those signs of life, the reminder that she was both alone and not alone, and if she slept badly she could lie still and listen, each sound a reminder that this was where she lived now: the kind of miracle that made her worst dreams immaterial. That was what Anya had done for her, and as Lexa turned the corner and saw her leaning against the wall of her apartment block with her hands thrust into her jacket pockets, suave and coolly beautiful, she felt a yearning to show her gratitude somehow, to put more comprehensible words to the chant in her head that signified Anya, the wonderworker. It was as if someone had asked what Lexa owed her, and all she could reply was, “Everything. Everything. Everything.”

Anya turned her head and saw her, straightening up a little and taking her hands out of her pockets. She was wearing her baggy colour-block biker jacket, the one she said she had found in a thrift store when she was seventeen, and something in her expression made Lexa think she had been waiting for her, although she would probably deny it. She felt Anya’s solemn eyes on her as she approached, her gaze moving swiftly from head to toe, then she was throwing an arm around her and pulling her close, right there on the street outside her apartment: her warm, long-limbed body pressed up against Lexa’s front, her hair falling forward into her face with the faintly minty smell of her shampoo. When she pulled back, she did not let Lexa go completely, holding her by the shoulders for a moment before smiling softly and leading her up the steps to the door.

“Quid agis?” she asked in Latin, as they climbed the dark stairs to her apartment on the third floor, then in English, “You look a bit pale.”

“I’m fine,” said Lexa, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand and rolling her eyes when Anya glanced at her sceptically, “Just tired, An. I didn’t get as many rides as I hoped.”

Anya quietly took her duffel bag from her, and Lexa could tell that she wanted to say something about her hitchhiking but knew that she was miserable enough without scolding. They reached the third floor, where a bare light bulb flickered incessantly on the landing, and Anya dug out her keys, Lexa slumping against the wall beside her apartment door to wait, rubbing the palms of her hands vigorously over her face. The corridor smelled strongly of burnt coffee and damp, as well as of something Clarke had once suggested was urine, although Lexa had secretly thought this was because Clarke didn’t know what old urine smelled like. It had been something she had disliked about Clarke when they had first met, her distaste for Anya’s building, which was run-down but old and dignified in a way Lexa appreciated: large sash windows and worn wooden floors. Clarke, unfazed and dryly amused, said that Lexa would like a dumpster if Anya lived there, and Lexa had found she couldn’t deny it. Now she was unreservedly attached to the building, not just because it was Anya’s home, but because it was where she had first seen Clarke.

She had been at Anya’s apartment on a Thursday evening in February, playing video games and talking distractedly to Anya about her teaching assistant job for the introductory Greek class. Video games had been a foreign concept to her when she had first come to the city, but she had adapted quickly and now she sometimes suspected Anya only kept her old console because she enjoyed how much pleasure Lexa got out of it. She had brought a pack of Anya’s favourite beers with her, and they had started drinking in the late afternoon, not with any real intent but enough that Lexa had begun to suspect she wouldn’t be preparing her Thucydides translation until the morning. Anya’s intercom had buzzed and she had taken a quick drink from her beer bottle, wiping her mouth with the inside of her forearm, then stood up and pressed the button to let whoever it was in without saying anything into the speaker. Lexa paused the game she was playing with a tap on the controller and twisted a little to look at her over the back of the couch, taken slightly aback. Anya did not know a lot of people in the city, or she did, but not the kind of people she would let into her building so casually. There was a tight, instinctive tension in her shoulders, which embarrassed her badly, because she had thought she had wrestled her small-town awkwardness into submission over the past two years. Anya had seen it in her face and made a lazy, dismissive gesture, “It’s okay, just Raven and a friend.”

She had met Raven at a graduation party the year before, at a bar Lexa knew only by name and thought might really be a strip club. They had been doing something loosely resembling dating for nearly eight months, but Lexa had never met her. She and Anya were good friends, possibly the closest either of them had, but Anya was deeply, inherently private.

“That’s cool,” she’d said, turning back to the game, “I should have brought more beer.”

“We’re going to order Chinese for dinner, you want to stick around?”

Lexa had deftly jerked one of the analog sticks and smiled, “Chinese? Ita vero.”

When Raven had come through the door a few minutes later, smiling tiredly and popping up on tiptoe to kiss Anya lightly on the cheek, there was a blonde girl behind her, still in medical school scrubs with an artfully scruffy knitted sweater pulled over the top. Lexa had paused the game again and stood up from the couch, holding her beer bottle awkwardly and trying not to look down at her shoes like a little kid being made to give a speech. Raven had turned away from Anya and looked at Lexa with kind, unconcealed interest.

“Is this the famous Lexa?” she had asked, squinting back up at Anya, who had slung an arm around her waist and was smiling down at her indulgently, an expression Lexa had never seen her wear before, “The Classics prodigy? The Patroclus to your Achilles?”  

Anya laughed, “That’s her, though she’s a bit skinny for Patroclus.”

“What up?” said Raven, and Lexa had known in that instant that she was lovely and clever and good for Anya, trusting the kind of split-second impression that she had been forced to rely upon so much as a child. Raven had lent forward over the back of the couch to shake her hand, an unexpectedly serious gesture that Lexa liked immediately, then she had waved vaguely in the direction of the blonde girl slouched in the doorway, “This is my roommate – Clarke.”

If she was honest, Lexa wasn’t sure how things had become so complicated so quickly. She remembered that she had thought Clarke was very pretty. Of course that was too modern, too flat a word. She was _kala k’agatha_ : beautiful, arrogant, gentle and generous. She was Apollo, with garlanded hair, coming down from mount Cynthus with a quiver of arrows clashing on her shoulder. She knew that now, but back then Lexa had only thought she was quite pretty, and not very polite.  Later that evening, she had been doing the dishes in the dimly lit kitchen and Anya had retreated to her bedroom with Raven, supposedly to fetch a book Lexa wanted to borrow. She had thought Clarke was asleep on the couch, where she had been lounging since they had finished eating, but then a hand had brushed her shoulder and she had startled badly, spinning around and backing hard into the kitchen counter. Clarke was there, her hair slipping out of its loose bun, her face soft and strangely intent as she looked at her. Lexa was abruptly, rigidly self-conscious of her own body: the soap suds clinging to her hands, the way the soles of her battered sneakers squeaked on the wooden floorboards as she adjusted her weight minutely.

“Clarke.”

“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Lexa had pushed her glasses further up her nose and turned back to the sink. To her surprise, Clarke had hoisted herself up to sit on the counter next to her, the heels of her shoes thumping lightly against the closed drawers.

“Anya doesn’t have a machine?” she asked, watching as Lexa rinsed soap off of a plate and picked up another.

“She does, but I prefer this.” When Clarke did not reply, she was uncharacteristically afraid that the conversation would end, and had tried a small, shy smile in her direction, “Washing dishes is my one great talent.”

Clarke smiled wryly back, and there was something unintelligible in her expression, “I hear your ancient languages aren’t bad either. I might even remember Anya throwing the dreaded g-word around.”

“The g-word?”

“Genius.”

Lexa had felt herself flush, either from the cringing embarrassment of a word like that or the low, lovely hoarseness in her voice as she said it. She had looked fixedly down at the coffee mug she was wiping, listening to the sound of Clarke’s breathing close to her ear and feeling more drunk than she had a few minutes ago. Clarke had leaned forward towards her, and Lexa had caught the smell of her: a rich, slightly musky body spray and expensive shampoo. The edge of one of her shoes had brushed very gently against the side of Lexa’s trousered leg, and nothing in her life had ever felt so real, so close. She could remember that moment in intense detail: the low, amber light of the kitchen, the mist on the window pane above the sink, the soapy warmth of the water as she reached in to find the last fork.

Now she fingered the scarf she was wearing as Anya grumbled about her apartment door, which was jamming in the damp weather. It was Clarke’s scarf, one she had borrowed from her before she had left for the funeral, and it smelled of her. It had been comforting to have, a reminder that she had something to go back to, that someone was waiting for her. Anya finally forced the door open and they went in, dropping the duffel bag near the door. She stripped off her heavy coat and scarf, and collapsed onto the couch while Anya put the kettle on. Her legs ached and there was a slow, relentless pounding just behind her eyes, but already she could feel some of the muscles in her back relaxing. She ran a hand over her face and pinched hard at the bridge of her nose, hoping the pressure would relieve her headache.

“Here,” said Anya, nudging her until she sat up and pushing a mug of tea into her hands, “Do you want an aspirin?”

“Thanks, but I think I just need to sleep.” She cradled the tea in her hands, relishing the heat of the porcelain against her palms and chapped fingers, and leant back into the couch. Anya sat down in the armchair under the window, blowing on her own tea to cool it before taking a sip.

“Did they feed you okay?” she asked, watching Lexa cautiously over the rim of her mug, “Did you sleep somewhere warm?”

“They did what they could. It wasn’t a good time, but I shared a bed with Aden, and I ate with the family,” she gave Anya a crooked, cynical smile, “It was like old times, man.”  

“Yeah, that’s what I was worried about.”

Lexa shrugged and drank her tea, slumping further into the couch until she was nearly lying down again. She closed her eyes, listening vaguely to Anya talking to her in the slow, gruff way she had when she didn’t expect Lexa to reply, just to listen as much as she wanted. It was dull, comforting talk: about their faculty, the grading she had done while Lexa was away, something funny Raven had told her at a Christmas party on Friday night. Lexa could feel herself falling asleep and a small part of her fought against the embarrassment of it, until she felt Anya take the mug from her and set it on the coffee table, then lift her legs up onto the couch, sitting down at her feet to tug her laces undone and pull her shoes off. She was almost completely asleep by the time she gently slid her glasses off of her nose, but she thought that Anya really did lean down and kiss her very chastely on the forehead, smoothing the loose hair from her temples.

 

II

When she woke up, she was confused and afraid. Her whole body felt stiff and her chest was tighter than before, her breaths more laboured. She had some trouble remembering where she was, that she was not still in the tin-roofed, four-roomed house of her childhood, the one she had promised herself she wouldn’t go back to lightly. For a long minute she kept her eyes squeezed shut, sure that she was on her mattress in the room where all the children slept, and that it was a hard rap on the door that had woken her: telling her to get up or be late for the start of the night shift. A rich, sickly dread thickened in her like curdling milk at the thought of dressing in the dark and going outside to wait with her father for the company bus that would take them up the narrow mountain roads to the mine. Then she felt a light hand settle on her socked foot, the thumb rubbing gentle circles around the sharp jut of her ankle-bone, and knew in a rush of warmth and certainty that she was on Anya’s couch in the early evening, covered by a blanket, and that Clarke was squeezed in beside her with her feet in her lap. She could hear low voices, Clarke and Anya talking to one another, and there was an easy familiarity in their conversation that she did not want to disturb.

“You know how many times she had pneumonia as a kid?” Clarke was asking, her tone both exasperated and fiercely affectionate, “Five separate times. How does that even happen?”

“It gets cold up there,” Anya said, “Her father was out of work for a while and they couldn’t heat the house properly, or feed themselves well, and I think maybe…”

“What?”

“I think they didn’t want anyone paying them much attention, particularly not doctors or social workers, so they wouldn’t take her to a hospital until she was really fucking sick, like almost dying.”

Clarke was quiet, and Lexa hoped her long silence meant she was still trying to work out what exactly Anya was implying. She felt the sick weight in her stomach, the roar of blood in her ears that always took hold of her when she heard other people talking about her, speculating, making any kind of reference to her childhood.  It was hard to ignore the interest people took in her, an interest which inevitably followed the kind of intellectual ability that had secured her freedom in the first place. Her professors invited her to dinner and wanted to know what her parents did, where she had gone to school, whether she was related to the Woods who had recently published a paper. She answered blandly and as honestly as she thought was appropriate, painfully aware that being too elusive would only encourage their curiosity, but only Anya knew anything of importance. To other people she said she had grown up in a small mining town and did not elaborate. To Anya she had been forced to admit the foster care and the crippling poverty early on, when they were first discussing how to get her to university.  Other things had slipped out later, usually when she had drunk too much, but sometimes just because she felt safe around her, like that first time in the Lebanese restaurant, when she had spoken about Arabic and her birthmother.

 With Clarke it was different, not because Lexa was afraid of her, but because everything about their relationship seemed so strange and fragile to her: a glistening soap bubble that should have burst long ago but somehow carried on beyond all expectation. The idea of telling Clarke anything more than the most basic outline of her life before they met was cringe-worthy, but there was something about her at the same time, a calm, effortless certainty in herself and in them, that made Lexa want nothing so desperately as to trust her completely. It had happened once, an inward crumbling she had not been able to hold back, a submission to Clarke’s patient persistence.

They had been out of doors, at Lexa’s favourite park in the city, on a picnic blanket under a tree. The last of their exams were over and Clarke was leaving for summer break in three days. She had been lying with her head in Lexa’s lap, dappled sunlight falling on her upturned face and her eyes gently shut. Lexa was reading her old copy of Homer, which she had bought second-hand as a teenager and worked through diligently with a lexicon when she was still teaching herself Greek. She did not really need a lexicon anymore, and she read for pleasure, her lips moving silently as she sounded out the meter. At one point she had found a line she wanted to read to Clarke and had leant over to kiss her softly on the forehead. As she did, a photograph had slipped out of its place between two of the book’s back pages and Clarke had opened her eyes in time to see it flutter down onto the blanket just beside her head. She reached for it and Lexa did not move to stop her, even though she remembered what it was: a dog-eared photograph of her at seventeen, wearing the navy overalls and fluorescent orange bib of a mine-worker, her hardhat held a little sheepishly at her side. She was standing in front of a cage-lift with her father next to her, dressed alike and smiling uncharacteristically at the camera, his hand squeezing her shoulder. It had been taken at about the same time as she had been reading the last few books of the _Odyssey_ , and she had used it as a bookmark.

Clarke had held the photograph carefully between finger and thumb, looking at it closely, and Lexa watched as she used the forefinger of her other hand to touch the younger Lexa’s face very, very gently.

“This is you, Lex,” she had said, glancing up at her and frowning slightly at something in her expression, then looking back at the photo, “God, you’re so skinny.”

“I’d been ill: pneumonia for the fourth time.”

Clarke had made a small noise in the back of her throat and said, “Is this at a mine?”

“It’s a coal mine; I had a job as a blaster’s assistant. My dad was a miner, that’s him there.”

“He looks proud of you.”

Lexa met her eyes for a fleeting second and looked away again, over the grass to where two little boys were trying to fly a kite, “I never saw him quite as happy as when I got that job.” She paused, “We really needed the money, you know, and I was the oldest one still at home. He was worried I wouldn’t get anything at the mine because I was a girl. They say we’re the last hired and the first fired.”

Before Clarke could say anything else, she had got up from the ground, carefully tipping Clarke’s head out of her lap. Her palms felt sweaty and her legs were restless with anxious energy, so she wiped her hands on her trousers and smiled, gesturing towards the boys with the kite, “Those kids have no idea what they’re doing. Do you think I should give them some pointers?”

Clarke had looked tentative for a moment, as if she wanted to stop her from leaving, then had smiled back and nodded with mock exasperation, “Yes, you big softy, go and save the day. I’ll be here when you get back.”

There had been something implied in that, a promise Lexa hadn’t been ready to acknowledge yet: that many, many things had changed and passed away, but that Clarke was in this for the long haul, for always, and had wanted her to know it.

She opened her eyes now and sat up slowly, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and smiling a little when Clarke shifted closer to her on the couch, pressing up to her side and planting a soft kiss to the place where her neck met her shoulder with a murmured, “Hey, sleepyhead.”

She laughed at Lexa’s hoarse-voiced reply and ruffled her hair teasingly, then sank back into the couch, still so close Lexa could feel her body heat through the blanket. Lexa pulled the blanket tighter around herself and lent her head on Clarke’s shoulder, closing her eyes for another moment to bask in the nearness of her, the fall of her loose blonde hair against her face.

“I missed you.”

“Me too.”

Anya got up with mock disgust, “Gross. You can take her home if you’re going to spill gay all over my couch.”

Clarke grinned as Anya disappeared into the kitchen, “That’s actually not a bad idea. Want to go back to mine? I’ll make you breakfast for dinner.”

“How could I refuse?”

She put her shoes and coat back on, tired and sore but filled with the relief and pleasure of being back in the city, back with Clarke. It was Sunday tomorrow and there would be time to lie in bed with Clarke, and do the crossword puzzle in the newspaper over coffee, and keep Clarke company at the Laundromat on the corner while she did her laundry. It was lovely and boring and full of promise. When she had finished putting her scarf back on, she turned to the couch and found Clarke watching her: solemn and pleased-looking.

“What is it?” asked Lexa, suspicious but smiling.

“Nothing. I’m just glad you’re back.”

They said goodbye to Anya and went down to the street, heading off towards the bus-stop side-by-side, though not quite touching. Lexa was still shy of public affection, still a little stiff when they were around strangers, and Clarke was gentle with her. As they waited for the bus, she felt the brush of a hand against her own, Clarke’s offer of contact, both generous and free of expectation. A lurching ache panged in her chest, not the usual pain of her lungs, and with a surge of courage she took Clarke’s gloved hand in her bare one. She could feel the shape of her delicate hand through the thick wool of her glove and although she didn’t turn to look, she knew she was smiling. They kept holding hands on the bus, and Lexa almost fell asleep again with her head against the cold window pane, but then Clarke was pulling her up, cajoling her off the bus and across the street to the little old house she and Raven shared. It had a front porch and a small yard at the back, and as Clarke opened the door, the dog came scrambling to meet them, his paws slipping a little on the wooden floor: a young black spaniel Raven had adopted as a puppy the year before. He was fond of Clarke, but had adored Lexa from the moment he laid eyes on her, and as soon as they’d gotten inside and closed the door, she dropped her duffel bag and hunkered down to scrunch his long ears and run a firm, affectionate hand from head to wagging tail.

“Hola, Alejandro. Sí, sí, I missed you too.” He licked her hands and her face, pushing his curly black head into her chest, and for a moment she held him tightly to her, then he was bouncing away again, following Clarke into the kitchen hopefully. She went after him and found Clarke reading a note from Raven that was stuck to the fridge.

“We’re out of milk. Raven’s gone to the store.”

“Cool. I think I’ll take a quick shower, then, if that’s okay with you.”

Clarke hummed in agreement, and she meant to leave the kitchen and dig a towel out of her bag, but Clarke was standing at the stove, heating a pan on one of the plates, and she felt almost irresistibly drawn to her. She came up behind her and wrapped both arms loosely around her waist, hands pressed flat against her stomach, tucking her head into her neck so that her nose brushed the rim of her ear. Clarke laughed very low in her chest, and Lexa could feel the vibration of it in her jaw, laying her own hand over one of Lexa’s. They stood like that for what felt like a long while, then Clarke said softly, “You didn’t tell me how he died, your half-brother.”

Lexa took a deep, slow breath and murmured, her tone suddenly flat, “He was hit by a car.”

“Lex…”

“The house is quite far out of town, you have to walk along the highway. I got knocked down once when I was a teenager, walking home in the dark.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s alright.”

It hadn’t been alright, not last Tuesday evening when she had gotten the phone call from her half-sister, or on the bus ride, or at the funeral. Even more than as a teenager, she had felt out of place and unsure of what exactly she was to the family. She had lived with them since she was nine, had helped to raise Aden and the others , but there had always been an unspoken divide between herself and the other children, the legitimate ones. She didn’t look like them, didn’t think very much like them either, and when things got nasty it had seemed obvious that the anger and frustration would be taken out on her first. The day of the funeral had been one of the worst days of her life, and nothing had been alright for a while, but they were alright now.  

Clarke left the stove and turned around to face her, slowly lifting her hands to cup Lexa’s face, her fingers moving behind her ears. Lexa shivered at the touch and Clarke smiled, then leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed back slightly, then more forcefully, one hand moving to the small of Clarke’s back and pulling her closer. Clarke laughed a little into the kiss, her teeth just barely grazing Lexa’s bottom lip, one thumb rubbing around the shell of her ear. When they broke apart to breathe deeply, Lexa kept them pressed together, her forehead rested against Clarke’s.

“Hey,” said Clarke, “Hey, listen to me.”

“Hmm?” she asked, eyes still closed.

“I want you to come home with me.”

“I’m already here.”

Clarke snorted and slapped her very lightly, teasingly, on the cheek twice, as if she was trying to rouse someone dazed, her palm lingering, “Yes, honey, but I mean _home_ home.”

“Oh,” said Lexa, eyes coming open, pulling her head back from Clarke’s, “Oh. Like for winter break?”

“Yeah, like for Christmas,” she kissed her again, once, succinctly on the corner of her lips, “Come home with me and meet my family. They love you already.”

“They’ve never met me.”

Another kiss, now to the hinge of her jaw, and Clarke spoke with her mouth just beneath her ear, “They love you because I love you, because you make me happy.”

Lexa’s hand, still at the small of Clarke’s back, fisted tightly, momentarily in the soft wool of her sweater, then she pulled completely away, out of Clarke’s grasp.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, “Thank you for the invitation.”

“Which means no.”   

Lexa shrugged, turning away and going back out into the hall to get her towel from the duffel bag. Her throat felt tight, and although she had not cried at the funeral, or even when she had first been given the news, she cried in the shower, under the pounding of the hot water. She had learned very young that if you had to cry, if you had to do something so embarrassing, that was the only acceptable place: where no one could hear you over the fall of the water, and everything was washed away.

She felt better when she had finished, and she didn’t smell of sweat and exhaust fumes anymore. Raven had arrived back while she was showering, and the two of them went out into the dark yard to throw a tennis ball for the dog in the light from the kitchen window. Lexa wanted another cigarette, but Clarke was making dinner on the other side of the window and she thought she had probably caused enough trouble today without lighting up right in front of her. She was always exceedingly cautious after even the smallest of their disagreements and always surprised and relieved when Clarke brushed over them without a second thought. She loved how Clarke sat close beside her at the kitchen table as they ate dinner, and dried the plates while Lexa washed up and the radio on the counter played old time music because that was the station Clarke knew she liked. When she had put the last glass on the draining board, Clarke tugged her away from the sink and slung her arms around her neck, Lexa’s own hands moving to Clarke’s waist. They didn’t speak much, but they swayed a little to the rhythm of the music, and Clarke rested her head on her shoulder.   

“You smell like soap and grass,” she said quietly, when there was a lull in the music, “But you didn’t always. When we first met, I thought you smelled of wood smoke and explosives.”

“Ammonium nitrate,” said Lexa, “The smell clung to my clothes.”

“It clung to all of you,” she hesitated, and said, “I told my father about you on the phone. I said: I met a girl last night who smells of fireworks.”   

Only Clarke could tell her something so simple and so intuitively right, could allay her secret doubts and fears in a handful of words. She held her close and said, without speaking: you are poor and rough and sometimes unhappy, and it’s beautiful and I love you.

“Lexa,” said Clarke, “Will you come home with me for Christmas?”   

She knew in that moment that she would say yes, to this, to everything that Clarke ever asked of her, and she nodded with her eyes closed, and felt Clarke smile into her shoulder.

    

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the _Odyssey_.
> 
> The quoted Ovid is from elegy 1.5 of the _Amores_.
> 
> You can find me at laney-builds-cathedrals.tumblr.com


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